BOTCHED

Directed by: Kit Ryan Written by: Derek Boyle, Eamon Friel, Raymond Friel Starring: Stephen Dorff, Jaime Murray, Sean Pertwee, Jamie Forman, Russell Smith Distributed by Optimum Releasing Film is released in the U.K. on Friday 18th April 2008 Review by Michael Edwards

rating: 3

I really shouldn't be giving this film such a decent rating. It's an absolutely ridiculous premise, an even more ridiculous story and it's all set in Russia with a bunch of Americans putting on the stupidest Russian accents I've ever heard. It's full of stereotypes which are not just false but frankly outdated by a good few decades and all of the gags could have been devised by a five year-old. The problem is, there was an appreciative five year-old inside me that couldn't help but laugh at quite a lot of this film. The set-up is thus: we are thrown into the scene of a robbery. A bunch of criminals are stealing diamonds from a vault and all seems to be going smoothly. They are ahead of schedule leaving them time for a leisurely breakfast at their hotel. But suddenly a cat jumps in front of the car, they swerve and the car smashes into a wall killing ll but one of the thieves. As the remaining felon (Ritchie, played by Stephen Dorff) flees the scene for fear of being caught by the cops he is hit by a car and the diamonds go everywhere. With sirens approaching he has to scarper empty handed. At this point a lot of people aren't sure if it's serious or not, after all this had been billed as a horror. I, however, was laughing my arse off. The fact that one of the thieves' head was jammed into a wall after a crash and the exaggeratedly corny editing had already firmly assured me of the nature of what was to come, and I wasn't disappointed: it turns out Ritchie is indebted to a Russian mobster who helped his mother emigrate to the States. As he failed to get the diamonds to repay this debt he must now go to Russia and steal a priceless relic from a media mogul in Moscow. What happens subsequently is nothing short of absurdist genius. We arrive in Russia and meet Ritchie's psychotic criminal colleagues Peter and Yuri (played by the distinctly non-Russian Jamie Foreman and Russell Smith) and know this will go awry. What I would never have predicted is that this trio and a bunch of unwitting hostages would be pursued around a disused floor of the plush media company HQ by a crazy guy who thinks he's Ivan the Terrible. And that isn't even the end of the twists. The pursuit comprises a series of increasingly zany low-brow gags and some quite imaginative painful moments, who would think of floor spikes accompanied by a disco ball and pop music - all being danced along to by an ecstatic Ivan the Terrible? It's an image you won't soon forget. As Kit Ryan's first feature movie and the product of the writers of the Orlando Bloom flop The Calicum Kid it is a surprise how much the film plays on the genre, but what really sells this film for me is that it revels in its own playfulness. It's stupid and gory and fun. As Kit Ryan himself said "To me this is a real popcorn movie - you don't have to work hard to enjoy it." You can view the movie website (complete with serial killer game) here: www.botchedmovie.co.uk